A woman in South Korea has been found guilty of being an accomplice to murder. The woman, who is in her 20s, wanted to terminate her pregnancy, but she was too far along to do so. She was then reportedly told there was a way to end the pregnancy and was connected to a hospital that seemed to perform late abortions. Abortions have been decriminalized in that country, but the rules are kind of unclear. This woman, however, didn’t have an abortion. Instead, her baby was born alive, and then it was killed. Although her legal team tried to argue that she didn’t know, documents say otherwise.
The woman, who has only been identified by her surname, Kwon, wanted to terminate her pregnancy at 36 weeks, the BBC reported. She found out about the pregnancy when she was seven months along and didn’t want to keep the baby because she didn’t have stable income. Additionally, she smoked and drank during her pregnancy, which caused her to fear birth defects.
Prosecutors said the baby was born alive via C-section. It was then placed in a freezer until it died, the outlet reported. The newborn was put there by the hospital’s director and the surgeon who performed the C-section. The hospital staff then reportedly falsified Kwon’s medical records to say she’d had a stillbirth.
Allegedly, the hospital received a total of 1.4 billion won, or about $943,000 US, to perform abortions on more than 500 patients, prosecutors said, per the BBC. Many patients had been introduced to the hospital through brokers, Kwon included.
The woman first gained attention in 2024, when she sparked outrage after posting a video to YouTube claiming she had an abortion at 36 weeks, CTV News reported. Although the clip was quickly deleted, screenshots began circulating, prompting a police investigation of Kwon and the doctors who performed the procedure.
Kwon argued that though she wanted to terminate her pregnancy, she didn’t know the procedure would happen that way. She claimed that a friend told her the baby would be stillborn, The Korea Times reported.
Her lawyer argued that she didn’t know the baby would be killed after birth. The judge, however, was told that she was notified by medical staff that her baby was healthy and even got to hear its heartbeat. The judge was also informed that she knew her baby would be born alive via C-section.
During the trial, both the hospital director and surgeon admitted to killing the baby. Prosecutors sought a 10-year prison sentence for the hospital director and six years in prison for Kwon and the surgeon.
The surgeon was sentenced to four years, and the director was sentenced to six. Kwon was given a three-year suspended prison sentence. “It is deeply regrettable that the court appears to assume that a desperate woman had a duty to research options such as giving birth and arranging adoption in advance,” her lawyer said, per The Korea Times.
